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The year 2023 saw a rousing beginning with a massive show of strength of both senior leadership and employees at the inauguration of the Safety Month at the Manapakkam Campus in Chennai, which was held physically after a gap of two years. Before administering the Safety Pledge, T Srinivasan, Head & Chief Executive, L&T GeoStructure, forcefully declared that “the only person responsible for Safety is the one in the mirror.” The close-to‑2,000-strong gathering collectively committed themselves to the theme of the Safety Month: I care. I commit. I comply. Tsn further elaborated on the relevance of the three terms – I can, I will, & I shall – when adhering to EHS standards and practices.
M V Satish (MVS), Whole-Time Director & Senior Executive Vice President (Buildings), felt that L&T Construction’s EHS performance was a mixed bag. “While, on one hand, we have won several prestigious EHS awards – including 8 ‘Swords of Honur’ from the British Safety Council, 53 RoSPA ‘Golds’, and 52 awards from the National Safety Council – on the other, while there was a 12% increase in manhours, there were still several accidents and fatalities, which is a matter of concern even for the L&T Board.”
Speaking about the weakest link in the chain, MVS said, “We deploy more than 3 lakh workmen across our projects, and it is our moral responsibility that every single employee and workman working with us returns home every day safely without any injury, which is also critical for business.” He referred to the evolution of safety over the past few years with all the stakeholders, viz. clients, investors, industry, and the government, now demanding greater safety. “Safety is a crucial consideration within the ESG (Environment, Social, & Governance) framework too, and this has assumed greater significance for financial institutions and investors,” he remarked. Stressing the importance of leading safety from the front, MVS said, “Safety needs to be demonstrated at all levels, and senior leadership at projects should carry safety on their shoulders, including PDs, TFL Heads, Project Managers, Section In-charges, Site Engineers, and even Frontline Supervisors, who must demonstrate safety through personal actions.”
Striking a warning chord, S V Desai, Whole-Time Director & Senior Executive Vice President (Civil Infrastructure), commented that there were murmurs within the Japan Investment Corporation Agency (JICA) about the growing number of incidents at L&T projects sites, since L&T was one of the biggest beneficiaries of JICA funding. “We are currently very reactive in terms of safety,” he pointed out. “We need to be far more proactive in our approach. Let’s not wait for data and then plan our action; let’s act in advance to prevent accidents,” he said, alluding to the adage that prevention is better than cure.
Capturing lead indicators was a turning point to improve EHS standards within PT&D, pointed out T Madhava Das, Whole-Time Director & Senior Executive Vice President (Utilities), elaborating that the metric had witnessed a 3‑fold increase. “We leveraged analytics from the SHEILD App to derive insights based on which training programmes and work methods were designed. Typically, our focus areas for safety were work at height and shutdown activities, but the analysis revealed that 23% of near misses were related to excavation and foundation activities, which were normally considered relatively lowrisk.” He felt that behavioural reasons for incidents were only half the story. “We still need to address material, method, and workmanship issues,” he said, adding that immediate recognition and positive reinforcements were reaping the business rich dividends in improving EHS standards.
The Safety Flag being hoisted
“We do not have a license to kill,” said K Asok Kumar, Executive Vice President & Head – WET IC, categorically, “and fatality should be avoided at all costs.” He shared about the robust mechanism for EHS compliance instituted within his business, which includes weekly reviews at sites, monthly reviews at clusters, the View EHS platform, a Reward & Reprimand system, safety pep talks, safe execution cards, and SOPs.
K S Sudheesh Kumar, Head – EHS, WET IC, then took the podium to brief the audience about the various Safety Month activities, and the event, professionally anchored by Ms. Jayapriya, Senior Manager – HR, Heavy Civil Infrastructure IC, was brought to an end with a Vote of Thanks rendered by P V J Varma, JGM & Head – EHS, L&T Hydrocarbon (HCP vertical).